Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Tech Mahindra Limited Q3 FY 2022 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen- only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. C.P. Gurnani, MD and CEO of Tech Mahindra. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Good evening. Good morning. Welcome to Tech Mahindra Q 3 2022 results. Thank you for joining us today. I know we all have successfully navigated or rather in the process of navigating the third wave. Wish you all a very happy new year and good health in the year FY 2023, calendar year 2022. Your company has begun to accelerate its journey towards becoming more purpose-driven, people centric and performance driven organization. We had, you know, some of us had met in November. We spoke about your company focusing on value creation for the customers, for the associates, for the community and for the shareholders. We remain committed. Even in this quarter, our results reflect our commitment to deliver sustainable, profitable growth. We remain committed to ESG. We remain committed in the same breath to the prudent capital allocation and creating, in general, a better company every day.
We have taken a few bold bets. One of the bold bets was BFSI being split into BFS and I. Vivek during the course of the day will talk more about the recent acquisition and why insurance has been split as a separate work stream. If you recall, we had committed that while CME, which is our largest vertical, will continue to grow, but we are also committed to create billion + dollar verticals in BFSI, in manufacturing, in healthcare and in high tech. On the technology side, I think the way we are approaching this is, as number one on the skill side. On the skill side, what we have done is we have expanded our footprint in a lot of new Indian cities, and we also expanded our supply base overseas, you know, Romania, Costa Rica, Latvia, Belarus.
What we consider is that in today's environment, having a wider base in India, we have invested in Indore, Nagpur, Vijayawada and Bhubaneswar. All I'm trying to make a point here is that your company now has some of the most well spread out base for supply. On the international side, you know, we always had Mexico, but in the recent times we have been able to see that Mexico has grown almost to 2x. On the technology space, you would recall we had made a big announcement regarding our investment in blockchain. We even invested in a blockchain company in Europe. That bold bet is now becoming a much bigger reality as Web 3.0, NFT and Metaverse become household names.
Because your company can now go back to its customers and clearly say when you do blockchain growth, when they come up to the Web 3.0, your company is in a better situation. Combined with our connectivity solutions around 5G and combined with some of the you know, user applications, combined with human experience management, I think we are in a very, very strong position. On the sustainability side and the marketing side, we have you know, partnered with Mahindra Racing to develop their next generation EV racing cars. We are also continuously partnering on sports tech, particularly by managing stadiums or managing fan experiences, particularly during COVID times. I'm proud the way Tech Mahindra continues to evolve on engineering solutions, new technology, and continues to also look at green solutions. I think it's time to talk about our results.
I know Milind will cover them in detail. Very, very happy that your company is now a $6 billion annual run rate company. We have shown a sequential growth in constant currency at 4.7%. Large deals, I had committed that it will be in the range of $700 million or $1 billion. $104 million-
Mr. Gurnani, the audio is slightly breaking from your end, sir. Please check.
Okay. Is this better?
Sir, it's still breaking.
I think, Rohit, you will have to take over because there's very little I can do to change my audio.
C.P., you're okay now. We can hear you now. Go ahead.
Okay. We had promised a continued deal momentum and happy to report deal wins of $704 million this quarter. This is the fourth quarter of $700 million-plus deal wins. Very, very proud that CME has grown 6.8% in constant currency. Enterprise has also done well at 3.2% in constant currency. Our EBIT, I indicated to you that average through the year would remain at about 15%. I think considering the growth, considering that we had to use a lot of subcons, the company has done well and, we've reported 14.9% at EBIT. Overall, happy with the continued pace of our deal wins, continuing to build on our connectivity experiences, continuing bets on cloud and engineering.
I think overall, your company has done well, and I am even more optimistic about future. I want to reiterate our commitment to capital allocation. We will continue to invest, but again, in a very, very disciplined way. We will invest either to acquire or fill gaps in our engineering capability or in our domain capability. We will continue to return cash to the shareholders. We are currently at about a reserve of close to $1.3 billion, and I know that we will continue to generate further free cash flow. In general, I think a good all-around performance, happy with the progress, happy that we have added 4,000+ associates this quarter. I'm also very happy that Network Services is driving the growth in our Communications, Media & Entertainment vertical.
Thank you again for your support and thank you for attending this call. I'm handing over to our CFO, Milind Kulkarni, to take us through the financials.
Yeah. Thank you, C.P., and good evening to all. Let me cover the financials in little more detail. Our revenues for the third quarter was $1,533.5 million, a sequential growth of 4.1% in reported currency terms. With a currency headwind of about close to 60 basis points, the constant currency growth was about 4.7%, as C.P. referred to. Growth was led by the CME vertical and was augmented by Enterprise vertical. CME grew in reported currency at 6.2% sequentially, while enterprise growth was 2.7%. Within enterprise, the manufacturing, retail, and HLS showed a healthy growth. Okay.
In terms of deal wins, as C.P. referred to, we had another strong quarter of strong deal wins, and we reported a TCV of $704 million, which is broad-based both across CME and enterprise vertical. Okay. Coming to operational performance, our EBITDA for the quarter was about $276.5 million, a growth of 2.5% quarter-on-quarter. EBIT margin declined by about 40 basis points to 14.8%. Margins were impacted by supply side challenges around salary and subcon and lower utilization, which was, I mean, a deliberate strategy we have followed to augment the people supply. Especially at the lower end of the pyramid, so that we can, you know, bring down our cost of operation in the coming quarters. Okay.
These headwinds were partially offset by operating leverage and some tailwind in SG&A. The normalized SG&A going forward, we expect it to be a little below 13%. Moving to EBIT, our other income was lower than the last quarter because of the lower interest income as a result of mark-to-market losses on some of the long-term investment we have had. Since we are holding it for long term, we will weather out the yields increase that we have, that has been seen in the last few weeks. In long term, they will give us a better return. Now, our tax rate for the quarter was about 26.9% as against 29.4% in the last quarter.
Our normalized ETR, as we have always maintained, is about in the range of 26%-27%. The net profit margin were at about 12%, a drop of about 30 basis points. Our free cash flow for the quarter was $123 million, which is about 16% back compared to 100, little lower than the last quarter. Okay. Our DSO have increased by about nine days to 101, and the increase was mainly because some of our collection from a few large customers actually moved over to January due to Christmas vacations. Okay. We don't really see an issue there because these collections have come in, we've collected in the first week of January. So we expect DSO to come down to normal level in the coming quarter. Okay.
We continue to follow the hedge-based, rule-based hedging policy. The hedge booked at 31 December was about $2.2 billion versus $2.39 billion in Q2. Based on hedge accounting treatment, gain of $20 million has been taken to P&L. Last quarter figure was about $21.2 million, and gain of about $69 million is carried forward to balance sheet. Our rule-based hedging continues to deliver good results. Okay. We had a cash and cash equivalents of about $1.3346 million. As C.P. alluded in his remarks, we are committed to prudent capital allocation and returning excess cash to the shareholders while investing in the right areas for the future.
In summary, I would just like to reiterate that we are taking the right steps towards transforming our operations as we continue to focus on the growth momentum towards the last leg of the quarter. With these remarks, I now open the floor for questions. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. First question is from the line of Mukul Garg from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks. Milind, just a clarification on your comment about you know, how we should look at the SG&A going forward. You know, while you said that it will be little below 13%, can you just provide a bit more clarity on the trajectory of SG&A? The sense which was there last quarter was that investment in sales will continue to you know, be there, but there was a meaningful drop this quarter. Your cost per sales and support staff is the lowest in the last five years, despite sales momentum in recent quarters being really good. So if you can just help us understand what was there a one-off this quarter and how we should look at it.
If you can break out the advisory and legal cost impact on SG&A, given that you have done a number of acquisitions in recent past and in last two quarters there would have been impact from that as well.
You are right. I mean, there were some one-offs that we have had in this quarter as compared to earlier quarters. That's what has helped us. That's why I said that SG&A will go back to the normal level of around 13%, maybe marginally lower than 13%. That is because of the growth leverage that we continue to enjoy. I mean, I don't think we have really reduced any investment in terms of our sales and marketing, and that's reflected in our healthy growth as well.
Right. Is it possible to provide some clarity on the legal costs of deals? Is it materially different than last two quarters? You have done about 2-6 acquisitions, both in Q2 as well as in Q3.
Not really. There's no significant difference in the cost there.
Right.
Don't have the exact numbers with me right now.
Sure. The other question was, you know, just on the impact which was there in the BFSI and technology verticals. Now I know the base was already steep there, but was that more of a one quarter, you know, decline this in Q3? Or is there something different vis-a-vis other verticals like retail, which did quite well?
I think it was more of a full furlough impact, so we should see a good rebound in next coming quarter.
Great. Thanks for taking my question. I'll then get back to you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Gaurav Rateria from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for taking my question. Two questions. First, could you elaborate a little bit more on the nature of deals coming in 5G? Are they more short cycle in nature and linked to the roll-outs? How long this is likely to continue once the roll-outs are largely behind? What will be the key driver on growth on the 5G-related stuff?
Sure. Gaurav, can I request Manish to come in and talk a little bit about 5G momentum and answer your question. Manish?
Sure. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Gaurav, for the question. As we have been saying, Gaurav, over the last several quarters, maybe few years now, that our 5G positioning is not directed only towards network deployment. As a matter of fact, in November, we said very clearly that we will not be doing too much of the network construction and deployment activity. We will focus more on system integration, more on realization of the network from certification standpoint, more of design, and most importantly, we will focus more on the digital cloud aspect of 5G. Two reasons. One is to keep a strong eye on the commoditization that happens on the deployment side and hence the impact on margins.
Obviously we will we are taking a call to not go for volume, but go for quality. At the same time, this helps us keep our focus on innovating on the core platform side, which is to drive more automation, on how the networks will be integrated with cloud and with the varying different parts of the software architecture. Number two, we will focus on driving management of the networks. One of the deals that we signed in Q3, for example, it's a mid-sized deal. It is about building predictive analytics on a 5G network for their deployment work, for the deployment and maintenance workflow, workforce.
In a nutshell, I think we are 5G-focused both on the network as well as on the underlying platform. Strategy continues to remain very focused on digitizing and more software and services driven. Hence, you know, this will continue for a while because we still have a long way to go for the service providers to completely modernize, you know, their entire 5G network. That work, by the way, will continue even beyond the RAN network is deployed, you know, over the next two years. Hence, the way we like to position it is that whether it is 5G or even 4G, 6G or otherwise, this is all always going to be about a journey around modernizing the network and the underlying platforms.
That's been our strategy, and I think we are going to remain very focused on that. I hope that helps.
Thank you, Manish, for the elaborate answer. The second question is more for Rohit. Given the normalization of SG&A, that will act as a headwind to the margins in the coming quarter, what would be the offsetting factors? Are we kind of in line with our strategy of continuing to see margin improvement, at least from a 12-18-month point of view? Thank you.
Yeah, sure, Gaurav. Yeah, Gaurav, as Milind mentioned, SG&A will be in the range that we mentioned, hence quarter-over-quarter that will increase. If you look at from a gross margin perspective, as Milind mentioned, that we've invested you know from a longer-term basis on pyramid improvement. You know, I'll ask once I discuss this point, I'll ask Harsh to also come in because that's been a strategy that he also shared in his investor communication that we did in November, that we continue to add more freshers to the organization to change the pyramid, bring overall average cost down as we move forward. It's a long-term strategy which we need to continue to invest.
In short term, obviously, with pressures on utilization, deployment of those pressures, it has to be taken as a short-term cost. I think we've taken that call as an organization where we continue to look at long term. That, you know, improvement in utilization as we look forward, next quarter and the quarters after, will get better. We've said that we are comfortable with the 85%-88% zone in utilization. That lift should give us better traction as we move forward. Of course, from a growth perspective, the deal wins and the pipeline continue to be strong and positive. That leverage will continue as we move forward.
Hence, the levers that we've articulated continue going forward into the next few quarters as well, Gaurav.
Thank you.
Yeah. Just to add to what you said, Rohit, and you've absolutely articulated it well. It is the fact that we, as a stated strategy, you know, invested in juniorization and training internal talent. But we also got a strategy to go to tier-two towns, where we've established ourselves in 9 tier-two towns. I think it seems to be working. We hope we are confident that even going forward, this will be a key differentiator, as well as the fact that we now have access to talent from various nearshore centers. We already established Mexico and Canada, but with our new acquisitions, you know, Latvia, Romania, Costa Rica and Belarus have opened up.
I think a mix of the fact that we are investing in juniorization and the tier-two towns will clearly show and make a difference for us as a differentiator.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manik Taneja from JM Financial. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for the opportunity. Just wanted to get your thoughts on a couple of things. Number one thing is that we are seeing the industry expand in terms of tier two and tier three cities. Do you think that apart from taking the jobs to where the people hail from, or getting access to a wider talent, does this also help in terms of, managing our overall cost of employees? That's question number one. The second question was with regards to our subcontracting expenses. If you could give us some sense as to how should we be thinking about these costs both in the near to medium term? Thank you.
Manik, maybe I can talk about subcon first, and I'd like to, you know, request Harsh to share his views on tier two, tier three strategy and how we're thinking through it. You know, on subcon, I think it's if you look at last few quarters, and we've articulated it that this year we'll see the pressure of that going up through the quarters, and that's what's you know, tended to be. Because of the demand that travel restrictions continue to be able to have people positioned there in those required roles, plus the timing of the deals ramping up and the needs we had to continue with that option.
As you think about the future and move forward, we've shown a walk in our November meeting also. That's a big lever for us as we move forward. We'll add to the tailwind over financial year 2023, you know, when we move that towards full-time employees and the leverage that we get on the cost saving there. I think that will be available to us as we move forward. I think this year we continue to see pressures there. Harsh, can I request you to talk through tier two, tier three strategy, and how we're thinking through that?
Harsh, are you there? Can't hear you. Maybe you're talking.
Sorry. Can you hear me now? I'm sorry, I was speaking on mute. Manik, thank you for asking that question. You're bang on that, as part of our stated strategy a few quarters ago, we said that, you know, we will do a few things which I think will be a clear differentiator. Of course, Rohit talked about the fact that, you know, we went into juniorization in a big way. In fact, we increased our numbers multifold there. Also the fact that we actually decided to go into these tier two towns. Manik, there are nine of them, ranging from Thiruvananthapuram, Visakhapatnam, Nagpur to Bhubaneswar, Chandigarh, Kolkata, Indore, Vijayawada and Coimbatore.
Our experiment for the last two quarters clearly tells us that the strategy seems to be right. We've hired almost more than 8,000 people from these centers in the last couple of quarters. As you were saying, Manik, what we realize is that, A, not only are the average costs lower by, say, 15%, but we clearly see that our dropout rates in these tier two towns are lower by almost 15%. Now, obviously, this will help us on cost, but this will also help us in creating a funnel. We hope that with the acquisitions that we have, the nearshore centers like Romania, you know, we already have presence there in Bucharest. We have Latvia with Riga. We have Costa Rica and San José and Belarus.
I think there is a clear differentiation that we can make. Not only are the, you know, the normal skills available, but we've also seen, Manik, that, you know, even the niche skills like, say, D&A and Cloud and, SAP HANA, et cetera, we've had a very good experience, in the last couple of quarters. A longish answer to a short question, but.
Clearly, this will definitely impact positively, not only on creating a funnel, but obviously also, on cost, going forward.
Thank you. One last bookkeeping question for Rohit. If you could help us understand the amount of one-time benefit that we had on SG&A in the current quarter.
Yeah. Manik articulated that as around 70-80 basis points to the margin, which is across multiple line items that will come back as we think about next quarter. Hence, the countering view that we see on the growth margin improving that I articulated earlier. I think on balance, it looks balanced from that perspective in totality.
Sure. Thank you, and all the best for the future.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sandeep Shah from Equirus Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Just first question is in terms of the enterprise growth. If I exclude the inorganic acquisitions which would have contributed to enterprise side of the business, excluding Communications, the growth on the organic front for Enterprise looks lower at 1%-1.5%. What is causing this, because generally Retail has a seasonal strength regarding this as a whole?
Sandeep, I think the organic growth is, you know, slightly higher in, more in the range of, because it's constant currency impact also, it's more in the range of, 2%. Yes, I think as we mentioned and as C.P. and Milind mentioned, from a vertical perspective, we had lower impact in some of the geographies for BFSI and high tech vertical, which we see as a quarter blip, and it'll come back, from a long-term momentum perspective next quarter and as we move forward. I think we're pretty, you know, positive on all sub-verticals in the enterprise vertical, and even it's reflective in the deal wins. Hence, I think, from a trajectory perspective, it's firing in the right direction.
Thanks. Just a question on Communications. Despite the TCV wins being slightly lower on a quarterly basis, our growth has been phenomenal. Just wanted to understand from Manish Vyas, is it the lower size, lower tenure deals which are more prevalent now in the Communications as well, and whether that trend will continue, which will give you faster conversion of order book to growth? And whether these kind of mid- to high-single-digit Q-on-Q growth in Communications can continue going forward or not? Because last two quarters, we have done a very good job in Communications, Media and Entertainment.
Thank you for the feedback, Sandeep. Appreciate that. I'll pass it on to the team. I think we discussed this, if you and some of you recall a few quarters ago and even in November, that the agile way of contracting, of picking up a large program, let's say modernizing a certain platform, but then creating the smaller milestones, I think is something which is picking up a lot inside the Telcos in the last few years, I would say. Does not mean that the larger deals are also not being discussed. They will continue to happen. The momentum that you are seeing is based on the ramp ups that we do on these larger engagement, but they are not announced as large deals.
They are always, you know, I like to call them as agile piles. Though they are very strategic and they are probably in a sum total over a period of time are even bigger than some of the larger deals. Your reading is correct. To your second point, yes, we are. We believe that we have a pretty good foundation now. The last three, four years of efforts have really yielded pretty good results in terms of staying focused on the digital platforms, on driving customer experience journeys, on driving investments in cloud and networks while we continue to scale our BPS business and platform business. I think a diversified portfolio that we have always been known for, I think will continue to hold us in good stead as we go forward.
Okay. Thanks. This is helpful. Just last question, Rohit, on margins. Last two years, we have done better on YOY basis, and we also are aspiring to do better in terms of a YOY journey in margins at EBIT level for FY 2023 as a whole. Is it right way to consider that even FY 2023, with organic and inorganic growth momentum being better, even likely to be better in FY 2023, the upward bias on margin movement may even continue in FY 2023?
Yeah. Sandeep, we are similar to what we spoke a couple of months back. I think when you think about our journey, we said that we feel we have headroom on expanding margins. When you look at the levers for us specifically, you can really look at short-term sub-con cost for next year, which is an easy, visible headroom that we have as we move into the next year. When we think about it, the offshoring you know improvement that we had articulated, some of it is structural versus fear. Some we feel we have a gap that we will cover you know is another headroom for us to improve. That continues. When we think about you know the cost pressures, another big thing that you know we'd articulated was price increases.
That's something that, you know, we're trying to have a great momentum going across the business units because that is an inflationary environment, right? Hence, from a price perspective, that's an important lever that we'll have to drive. That's, you know, something that value gap from a difference between price and cost inflation is something that the team is working on, and we feel confident on how we operationalizing that over the next few months. Those levers continue for us and obviously the growth momentum. When you look at what we've delivered quarter-over-quarter, the pipeline, the deal wins, all that multiyear phenomena that we've been talking about still holds true. That itself will give us the leverage as we move forward.
Yes, from a path perspective, those continue. The headwinds for us are on the continued attrition, where talent, you know, is tough, you know, from a supply side perspective. The cost going up, where we explained our long-term strategy of pyramid improvement, and we're investing in that, because of which you see gross margins impact and utilization impact. That's the right thing to do long term. We focus on that. You know, and obviously, we spoke about the offset and try to correct that. Another area that we'll continue to see some pressure next year with, you know, COVID normalizing, is on travel cost, right? That headwind will have to be mitigated with all the tailwinds that I spoke to you.
We continue to balance the mix of the portfolio between, you know, assets that are giving us low return. We will rightsize those. We will, you know, work around certain areas which don't give us a return to pull out of those operations to make sure that we drive the right mix. That's something we're operationalizing as well. We continue the same path that we are operationalizing that as we move forward.
Just a related extension to this. Does this require a better exit rate in the 4Q margins? Because generally in the 1Q, which may happen even in FY 2023, our margin dips because of the various reasons, including visa, Comviva license related, wage inflation related stuff. You believe even a 4Q flattish exit rate gives you a confidence to remain at a upwardly bias on margins for FY 2023. Because in that scenario, you may have to do a heavy lifting from 2Q - 4Q to show a YOY margin increase.
Yeah. Sandeep, that's correct. I mean, historically, that's been the trend from a 1Q - 4Q perspective, but there's been few changes to that. You know, from our perspective, we've continued to look at certain wage corrections and increases even in this quarter. So we've kind of spread that out versus doing everything at one go. So we've kind of made that a little bit more spread versus everything happening in the same quarter. Second, even the Comviva linearity, you know, to the degree we've seen in the past is moderated a little bit. So hence, 4Q - 1Q, the impact will be relatively lesser. We will see an impact, but it'll be relatively lesser. Then you're right, visa cost and all that seasonality will continue.
While the dip pressures will be there, but compared to the previous quarter, I think that risks of differences have reduced substantially.
Okay. Thanks and all the best.
Thank you, Sandeep.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipesh Mehta from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Couple of questions. First about, can you share the organic revenue growth this quarter? Second question is about the supply side management. Can you share some number, let's say nine months we added around 24,000 headcount. Can you help us understand how much pressure will be part of it and how we look fresher recruitment over, medium term, maybe FY 2023 or some number if you can provide, and how the pyramid is getting corrected? If you can provide some broader sense, it would be helpful. Thanks.
Yeah. I think on an organic growth perspective, our growth for the quarter is 4%. You know, the reported number is 4.1. Then there's a currency headwind that we explained of around 60 basis points that gets us to the 4.7 on a constant currency. Then the acquisition impact is 60-70 basis points that gets you to the organic of 4%, right? That's kind of the growth rate that we're seeing sequentially quarter-over-quarter on organic basis. Now to your question. Sorry, can you repeat your next question?
The supply side. Nine months we added around 24,000. If you can help us understand how much were freshers during these nine months and how much were from maybe acquisition related also addition. Going forward, how one should look fresher versus lateral, addition for us?
Yeah. Absolutely. I think, Harsh, can I request you to share the fresher addition in the pyramid that we've been working on? Harsh can add more flavor to it.
Yeah. Sure. Certainly. Thanks Rohit, and happy to answer that question. So, you know, in this year, we probably add about 10,000
At the bottom of the pyramid, that's freshers. The idea is to really increase it substantially as we go forward in the next year. Now, you asked the question on what is our supply chain preparedness. Let me tell you that, you know, we have now got a robust engine which does both hire from the market, but also looks at internal fulfillment in a big way because that's a focus area. You know, if you look at the addition, you would see that we have a supply chain engine that can add up to about, you know, 10,000-12,000 a month, and we are hoping that this engine will ramp up even further. We have adequate bandwidth.
We have adequate, you know, as you say, firepower to add folks and width, especially, even for the sake of repeating, I will add that our tier two experiment will definitely work because what we've seen in the last two quarters is that not only is it helping attract talent, but also the mix is good. We are getting niche skills, and there the dropout rates are much lower. To again answer your question, we are fully geared up. Our resourcing engine is fully geared up. We've seen a drop in attrition, as you know, in this quarter by almost 3%, 3.3%. We see our juniorization strategy well in action. We will add about 10,000, as I said, this year, and substantially more next year.
Overall, I think we feel very confident on addressing the supply side challenges going forward.
Understood. Thanks. Last question is on BFSI. If I look at BFSI, even for the last nine months performing, BFSI is relatively slow growth vertical for us. Can you provide some sense? Obviously, we did one acquisition to strengthen our overall capability. But if you can, considering the acquisition, how you expect BFSI growth trajectory for us. Thanks.
Yeah, sure. I think, basically, Vivek is in the call. Maybe, you can talk about building on our discussion in the investor call and how we're thinking through BFSI segment.
Thanks Rohit. Yeah, I'm here. I think just from a directional perspective, if you look at what we discussed at the analyst meet, BFSI is one of those verticals which we've said we will focus on for high growth. This quarter, obviously, there's a degree of seasonality, some programs coming to an end and a timing issue. From a demand perspective, it remains strong. We do see a growth momentum across various subsectors. With the acquisition and C.P. alluded to in his opening statement, we are creating increased focus on the insurance business. Over the last couple of years, we've now built a referenceable base of clients in insurance.
We did a large deal a couple of years ago, which is fully ramped up. With the acquisition of CTC, we're bringing in a renewed focus for growth globally. What C.P. was alluding to is more internal organization of management time and bandwidth of creating a dedicated sub-vertical to drive higher growth.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Urmil Shah from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a follow-up on BFS as well as the tech vertical. So was the softness in line with what we had expected at the start of the quarter or, you know, there was one-off slowness in ramp up of new deals as well?
Urmil, this is Rohit. I'll ask Vivek and Ratnesh also in the call to chime in. This is a part of typical trend we see in this time of the year, so it was expected. There are certain deals that we are working on these segments that we are, you know, seeing closure soon, in terms of growth momentum to continue, like, you know, we've seen in the past. As I mentioned earlier, I would take that as a quarter blip and, over time, as Vivek mentioned, the long-term story and the growth momentum in these two segments will continue for us to be very strong. Vivek, you wanna add something?
Yeah. Rohit, just to a specific question. Some of the furlough softness obviously was expected. We all know, you know, a lot of institutions in North America, Australia, New Zealand do furlough. I mean, I think
The one which are not, which are a little unexpected, was also the peaking of Omicron around the same time. Secondly, as I said to the previous question, there's some of it is also timing on some of the deals, even from an execution milestone perspective. As Milind said right at the beginning, expect a strong bounce back.
Sure. Thanks. My second question was a clarification on the subcon cost. If we see a 16%+ kind of number was last in Q3 of FY 2020, but there was a sharp reduction immediately in the second quarter. When we are talking about subcon cost being an operating lever, was it more from a point of view of FY 2023 or in the near term? A link to that, C.P. in his opening remarks mentioned network services driving growth in communications, the CME vertical. How much of the increase in the subcon costs was because of that? If we continue to see good traction in network services and CME, would the reduction in subcon costs be more gradual?
Sure, Urmil . I think when I referred to the subcon comment, my comment was more referring to FY 2023, and we're just a quarter away from that. It's a more, you know, 12-month story that gradually will play out as we tactically look at each and every area where we've deployed subcon and replace them with, you know, full-time headcounts. So it'll play out over a period of time. In terms of your other point, you know, I would suggest that we have Manish kind of articulate on the CME side the growth story that he articulated earlier as well, just to add a few points. Manish, are you there?
Yeah, sorry. Yeah, I'm there. Can you hear me?
Manish on the Network Services, the question.
Yeah. I think I answered earlier to Gaurav on the network services, which is largely being driven by, you know, there indeed are still some deals as we help people realize the value of the legacy networks. Those are reducing in volume and size as we go forward. Bulk of the network business is towards as we integrate software-defined networks or 5G towards the cloud integration. There is enough headroom to grow in that space. This year has been a revelation. Still early days, but you know, recall in November we had said that we will do, you know, in excess of $500 million on our overall 5G business, including largely driven by the network. Of course, there is other aspects of the 5G business as well.
The chances are that we will far exceed that goal by the end of quarter four. We'll also potentially have enough deals in our funnel to continue to drive the growth momentum on the network business. I hope that helps.
Manish, maybe I'll rephrase my question. It was more linked to the subcon cost. The increase-
Oh.
In the subcon cost this quarter, can a meaningful part be attributed to the growth in CME, which was driven by the network services? If we expect the growth in network services to continue, should the moderation in subcon cost be more gradual?
Yeah, no, I think the subcon cost was not just attributed to the network business. There were also a variety of different factors, particularly the speed with which we needed to ramp up some of the new digital contracts that or the smaller projects that we were doing. As we go and stabilize those, you know, customer centricity comes first, so that was a drift. As we go forward and we stabilize the engagement on those, I think we will utilize you know that both on the software, digital as well as on the network front.
Sure. Thank you and all the best.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Abhishek Shindadkar from InCred Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the opportunity. Just a question or a clarification on the standalone business. Growth seems to be better, but, you know, margins are at almost now, you know, three, four quarters, low. Any color on what's happening there could be useful. Thank you for taking my question.
You've got to look at it on a consolidated basis, you know, from a combined perspective because that won't reflect you know since there's interchangeability of you know the deals that we do from a customer perspective, right? Hence you got to look at it collectively on a consolidated basis to see the whole trend. Milind, you'd like to add something?
I don't know. If in the margin, you know, there are certain dividends which we get from the, you know, other group companies which were higher in Q2, lower in Q3, it doesn't have an impact on consolidated, but on standalone it can have an impact.
You may be referring to the other income in margins, including the other income part, right, sir?
That's it.
No. I was actually looking at it from you know, excluding the other income, and that's kind of dropped almost 100 basis points. I'm just trying to understand anything specific that we should be aware of.
Nothing. I mean, we really have to look at the consolidated numbers because, you know, there could be transfer pricing issues between Tech Mahindra and its subsidiary. Better way to look at it is as consolidated numbers.
Perfect, sir. Thank you for taking my question.
Thank you. Participants, to ask a question, you may press star then one. Reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Rohit Anand for closing comments.
Thanks. Thanks, everybody for joining us. As C.P. mentioned earlier, we're hoping and praying that everybody will come through this wave of COVID, and be safe around it. From our perspective, just to recap, the growth sequentially quarter-over-quarter continues, with CME leading the pack. We're seeing, you know, what we said earlier in the November Investor and Analyst Meet. We are on that journey and path of continued sustainable growth. We will continue to drive long-term objectives of the company as we move forward. Again, thanks for joining and participating in the call. Thank you.
Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Tech Mahindra Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you. Bye.
Thank you.